Attracting young people is key in fresh campaign to push up attendances

Great British Racing has set itself the task of attracting more young people to the sport and has announced a new campaign to increase attendances as part of its 2022 strategy on Thursday.

Its headline initiative is the National Consideration Campaign, aimed at improving racecourse attendances, which declined by two per cent between 2015-19, while rising two per cent across all British sports.

The target audience will be people aged between 25 and 34 and, while the precise parameters of the campaign have not yet been outlined, the main target will be holding the total attendance in the third quarter of the year at the 2019 level of 1.95 million people.

However, consumer research commissioned by GBR in the last 18 months highlights the challenges racing faces in attracting new audiences.

In a February 2021 survey, 32 per cent of respondents believed the sport should be banned, with women and young people, aged between 18 and 35, among the most likely to hold that view.

GBR points to "several damaging stories" in the past few months, and the survey found 43 per cent of respondents were indifferent to the sport, which it said represented an "opportunity and a challenge".

Getting more of these youthful scenes at racecourses will be part of GBR's strategy to boost crowds

Despite this, the body maintains racing was as "marketable as ever" and pointed to a strong level of awareness around the sport as well as the results of its own April 2021 survey, which found that 19 per cent of people were looking forward to attending live sports events.

In his foreword to the strategy, GBR chief executive Rod Street said: "If last year's strategy was focused on our ability to support the industry during Covid-19 and respond to the changing circumstances caused by the pandemic, this strategy sets out the ways in which we will grow the sport in terms of awareness and consideration.

"During the past 18 months we have undertaken consumer research that gives us the confidence that despite some of the challenges, awareness of racing remains high. Consideration to attend a race meeting, particularly among younger audiences, has increased slightly and the sport has a net positive favourability rating.

"Yet, back in 2019, racing was running hard to stand still with attendances declining gradually following a decade of record crowds. To help to redress this and fight for racing's share of the leisure market, we'll therefore be running a national consideration campaign in 2022 to increase attendance. This remains the biggest opportunity for racing based on market size and the fact it's from attending racedays that greater engagement in areas such as ownership flow."

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